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Why Josh Shapiro’s memoir could complicate a presidential run
When politicians publish memoirs, the goal is usually clear: introduce themselves to voters beyond their home state, often ahead of an expected national run, and present the version of their story that makes them most appealing to the broadest base. That’s what makes Josh Shapiro’s new memoir potentially counterintuitive.
In Where We Keep the Light, set to be published on Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s Jewish governor does not sidestep the parts of his biography and political record that could complicate a 2028 presidential bid.
Instead, he leans into them. Most notably, in a passage that made headlines earlier this week, Shapiro reveals that during his vetting as a potential vice presidential nominee in 2024, he was questioned so aggressively about Israel — including being asked whether he had ever been an Israeli agent — that he felt singled out because he is Jewish.
Shapiro, who has been mentioned as a potential first Jewish president since his gubernatorial campaign in 2022, was one of six finalists who conducted interviews with the campaign of then-Vice President Kamala Harris, a group that included Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who is also Jewish. Shapiro’s popularity as a governor from a key battleground state, strong oratory skills and reputation as a moderate made him a formidable choice for many Democrats.
But Shapiro’s staunch defense of Israel and criticism of the pro-Palestinian protests after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks made him a more complicated choice at a moment of deep polarization within the Democratic Party. Shapiro refused to call for a unilateral ceasefire in Gaza, he highlighted expressions of antisemitism at pro-Palestinian protests, and he criticized a “culture” at the University of Pennsylvania which he said did not take antisemitism seriously enough.
In his interview with Harris before she ultimately selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, Shapiro writes that he was urged to apologize for some of his comments about the protests to avoid alienating younger, more progressive voters and the Muslim-American electorate in Michigan. “‘No,’ I said flatly,” Shapiro writes.
Embracing a position that could complicate a campaign rather than smoothing away rough edges is not without precedent. In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani sustained criticism during his campaign for his refusal to soften his stance on Israel, which alienated Jewish voters, long considered one of the most influential blocs in citywide races. But he defied expectations, scoring a surprise primary victory in a city with the largest Jewish community outside Israel and winning the mayoralty with a majority of the vote.
But Mamdani’s political focus was local, driven by social media and grassroots organizing, and the response was immediate, not years away. His stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict actually attracted new voters.
For Shapiro, the stakes are national and long-term — and the benefits are far less certain. Palestinian rights and the Gaza war have increasingly become a litmus test for Democrats, many of whom want sharper opposition to Israel. Polls show that Democratic voters are increasingly sympathetic to Palestinians. Even national Jewish Democrats, like Pritzker and former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel — both considered possible presidential candidates in 2028 — have publicly challenged Israeli policy. In July, a record 27 Senate Democrats, a majority of the caucus, supported a pair of resolutions calling for the blocking of weapons transfers to Israel.
“People have grown frustrated with some of their elected leaders who just blow with the wind and take a poll instead of finding their pulse,” Shapiro writes. “I try to stay true to what I believe is right regardless of what others think.”
In the book, Shapiro focuses on humanizing moments, detailing experiences shaped by and tied closely to his Jewish identity.
Passover arson attack
The book opens with a harrowing account of the Passover arson attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s residence, hours after his family’s Seder, by an intruder who said he wanted to beat the governor with a sledgehammer over what he claimed was a lack of empathy towards Palestinians.
Shapiro recounts how the attack rattled his children and sharpened his sense that antisemitic violence is a lived reality — even for a governor with a police detail. “I have hardly been shy about my beliefs and my faith, all of which have put a target on my back over the last half decade,” he writes. “The vitriol only intensified after the October 7 attacks on Israel, as I continued to live my Judaism out loud.”
Still, he continues, until that moment, he felt safe. “The bubble burst that morning,” Shapiro writes. “People did want to kill me. They were hoping to, and willing to try.”
The Pennsylvania governor said this sentiment was shared by many American Jews who felt frightened after learning of the attack. But they were also comforted by his response and his refusal to be deterred from openly practicing his religion.
Tree of Life massacre
Shapiro devotes a chapter to the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh that killed 11 people, describing his role as attorney general at the time and the emotional toll of repeatedly standing with a community shattered by the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history. Shapiro was sworn in as the state’s 48th governor on a stack of three Bibles, including one that was rescued from the synagogue.
The episode, he writes, reinforced his belief that political leadership must be rooted in moral clarity. “It has only made me more proud to be Jewish, more willing and able to use my voice and whatever platform I do have in my position to speak out.”
Shapiro faced criticism for switching his position on the death penalty, after initially favoring it for the killer, Robert Bowers. In the book, he defends his evolution on the issue, after meeting with some of the families of those slain in the shooting attack and a conversation with his son Max. “I went the opposite way of what would be politically popular for me,” he writes. “But it was a matter of principle for me, not politics. I wasn’t about playing a game or pleasing a constituency.”
Alliance with Barack Obama
The memoir also revisits an earlier chapter in Shapiro’s political life: his defense of former President Barack Obama during the 2008 campaign, when Obama faced skepticism in the Jewish community over his associations with Chicago pastor Jeremiah Wright and his positions on Israel. Shapiro’s oratory skills are often compared to Obama’s.
Shapiro, who was at the time a state representative, writes that he was criticized within his own community for vouching for Obama, who went on to win the White House. Shapiro said a private conversation with the then-candidate convinced him that Obama’s commitment to the Jewish community was genuine.
“I felt comfortable defending his beliefs,” Shapiro writes. “I thought the attacks were unfair.”
Shapiro recalls that Obama invited him to attend the first-ever Seder he hosted with several Jewish aides as he campaigned throughout the state during the Democratic primary. “I politely declined and explained I needed to be home with my family,” he writes. “He totally understood.” Obama went on to lose Pennsylvania to Hillary Clinton.
A semester in Israel
Shapiro also recounts his early relationship with Israel, including a trip he took as a teenager with his classmates from Akiba Hebrew Academy — around the time he met his wife Lori — and how those experiences shaped his views on the Jewish state.
Shapiro spent four months living in a dorm, taking classes and touring the country. Jerusalem, he writes, felt entirely different from home, where his faith had largely been contained within the walls of his synagogue on Saturday mornings or at the family table on Friday nights. Shapiro and his family are practicing Conservative Jews who keep kosher and gather for Shabbat dinners, joined by Shapiro’s parents and in-laws.
“There was something foundational about being in Israel that really connected me more to my faith,” he writes. “In Israel, it was just everywhere. It was the first time I could feel faith. I could see it and touch it, and it wasn’t abstract.”
On Saturday nights after Shabbat ended, he and his friends would wander Ben-Yehuda Street, watching crowds spill out of cafes and bars. Every time, he would run into someone with a connection to Pennsylvania or to his family. It was a reminder, he writes, of the bonds tying Jews together around the world.
Shapiro proposed to his wife in 1997 under the 19th-century Montefiore Windmill in the Yemin Moshe neighborhood of Jerusalem, during one of more than a dozen trips to Israel.
Vetting as vice president
The final chapter of the book recounts former President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside and Shapiro’s willingness to be considered as a vice presidential nominee. Shapiro writes that while he was publicly praised, there was also what he describes as a coordinated effort to derail his candidacy, including “ugly antisemitic rhetoric.” He recalls praying frequently during that period, hoping the process would go smoothly. “I said the Shema more times during that week than maybe I had in my whole life before,” he writes.
When he first met with the vetting team over Zoom, Shapiro says the panel “spent a lot of time asking me about Israel.” He began to wonder, he writes, “whether these questions were being posed to just me — the only Jewish guy in the running — or if everyone who had not held federal office was being grilled about Israel in the same way.”
Ahead of his consequential meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris at the Naval Observatory, Shapiro writes, members of the vetting team asked whether he had “ever been an agent of the Israeli government” or had “ever communicated with an undercover agent of Israel.” Early in his career, Shapiro briefly worked in the Israeli Embassy’s public affairs division in Washington. He says he told Dana Remus, a former White House counsel under Biden and a senior member of Harris’ vetting team, “how offensive the question was.”
The Gaza war loomed over the campaign even before Biden withdrew from the race. Anxious Democrats pressed Biden to take a tougher stance on Israel as a way to recover from his disastrous debate performance in June 2024. Some urged an arms embargo to appeal to disaffected progressives and Michigan voters who had cast “uncommitted” ballots in the primary. Harris took a more forceful public position in calling for an immediate ceasefire to address the humanitarian crisis.
According to Harris’ own memoir, 107 Days, in her private conversation with Shapiro, she discussed how his selection might affect the campaign, including the risk of protests tied to Gaza at the Democratic National Convention and “what effect it might have on the enthusiasm we were trying to build.” Harris wrote that Shapiro responded by saying he had clarified that earlier views he held were misguided and that he was firmly committed to a two-state solution.
Shapiro’s account of that exchange is very different. He writes that Harris pressed him to apologize for criticizing pro-Palestinian campus protests, which he refused to do. “There wasn’t much more issue-based conversation before we moved on to what the [role of] vice president would look like in her administration,” he writes.
After leaving that meeting, Shapiro writes he considered publicly withdrawing his name from consideration. Instead, he privately informed the Harris team that he no longer wanted the job. “I had prayed for clarity,” he writes. “And now I was nothing but clear.”
Shapiro’s memoir will be released on Jan. 27.
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In Elie Wiesel’s latter years, he and I discussed the effects of the Holocaust. Those conversations are now an opera.
Back in 2012, while on assignment as the Chicago Tribune’s longtime music critic, I received a phone call from my editor that would change my life.
Elie Wiesel had just accepted the newspaper’s annual Literary Prize. Would I be interested in interviewing him for the paper?
Would I?!
There was only one minor problem: I had never read a word Wiesel had written, not even his revered Holocaust memoir Night. Holocaust education was not required in the 1950s and ’60s when I was growing up – not even in Skokie, a nexus of Holocaust survivors where I lived with my family. As the son of two survivors, I considered Holocaust books, films and TV programs emotionally overwhelming and something to be avoided, if possible.
My avoidance ended abruptly in 2001, when my then 69-year-old mother began re-experiencing her unspoken Holocaust childhood in the form of delusions. This prompted me to unearth her hidden story and tell it in a Tribune article and a subsequent book and a documentary for PBS – all aptly titled Prisoner of Her Past.
I assumed that work was the reason the Tribune tapped this music critic to interview Wiesel.
After a few weeks of reading everything he wrote that I could lay my hands on, I flew to New York and found myself seated inches away from him in his Manhattan office. Within minutes, we were speaking with a degree of comfort and intimacy I had not anticipated.
Even more remarkable, after Wiesel and I held a public conversation before 2,500-plus people in Chicago’s Symphony Center — a longstanding feature of the Tribune’s Literary Prize proceedings — he suggested that we stay in touch.
That’s when I realized we had the beginnings of a book: two generations — a survivor and a son of survivors — trying to come to terms with what happened to our families and to our people. For the next four years, I visited Wiesel regularly in New York and Florida and spoke with him often on the phone. The utterly unexpected privilege of these conversations ended suddenly with his death July 2, 2016, at age 87.
In effect, Wiesel had spent the last four years of his life communing with me about the Holocaust and its apparently never-ending after-effects, my tape recorder rolling all the while. These proved to be his final thoughts on the subject, which I took as precious lessons on a fraught subject. For Wiesel had given me answers to questions I never had been able to ask my parents. To them, the Holocaust was a subject not to be discussed with me or my sister, presumably to spare us the burden of such tragedy.
Wiesel poignantly addressed what I needed and wanted to know: How does the second generation deal with feelings of guilt over our parents’ unrelieved sufferings? How do we live up to our parents’ expectations of us, without suppressing our own dreams? How do we even speak of this terrifying subject? How religious must we be? How politically active? How do we cope with the enormity of it all?
And more.
I packed the answers – and our reflections on them – into my 2019 book The Art of Inventing Hope: Intimate Conversations with Elie Wiesel, which is the basis of the new opera: The Dialogue of Memories, which premieres next month in Seattle.
Why an opera?
Though I was glad to have captured on paper my treasured experiences with Wiesel, I wanted to share the wealth — to let others see and feel and hear what it was like to be in the room with him. I wanted audiences to witness Wiesel explaining and illuminating my own past to me. And like Wiesel, I’ve always believed in the indescribable but unstoppable power of music to go where words alone cannot.
In 2024, the Seattle-based non-profit Music of Remembrance commissioned composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer to write Before It All Goes Dark, an opera based on my Mac’s Journey stories in the Tribune about a Vietnam vet who learns he’s heir to a priceless collection of art looted by the Nazis (I had identified and located him).
After that opera’s success, I suggested to Music of Remembrance founder Mina Miller that my years with Wiesel represented a story of profound enlightenment that could be powerful onstage. Miller wasted no time commissioning the eminent American opera composer Tom Cipullo to write the music, with libretto by me with Cipullo.
The opera features three characters: Wiesel (sung by baritone Daniel Belcher); my mother, Sonia Reich (mezzo-soprano Megan Marino); and me (tenor Dominic Armstrong). Past and present, memory and prophesy, delusion and reality intermingle in its words. And Cipullo’s music lifts those words into the realm of sublime drama as only opera can do.
I don’t know how I’ll feel watching singers portraying Wiesel, my mother and myself confronting demons that have haunted all three of us, and millions of others around the world.
But as we mark Yom HaShoah, I do know that moments once shared by Wiesel and me alone now will be available to everyone. I hope that Wiesel’s brilliant insights and my mother’s tragic experiences will help others who — like me — have long struggled with dark and enduring histories.
The Dialogue of Memories plays May 17 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle; May 20 at the Presidio Theatre in San Francisco; and May 23-24 at the Studebaker Theater in Chicago. For details and tickets visit www.musicofremembrance.org. Howard Reich can be reached at howard@howardreich.com.
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J Street says Israel should fund its own defense
J Street, the progressive pro-Israel, pro-peace political advocacy, is shifting its stance on defensive U.S. military aid to Israel as a growing number of Democrats, including some of the congressional candidates it endorsed this year, call for ending such assistance.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the organization’s longtime president, said in a lengthy post on Monday that the organization is now advocating for phasing out direct financial support for arms sales to Israel when the current $38 billion 10-year memorandum of understanding between the two countries expires in 2028. He called it “a fundamental reassessment of the U.S.-Israel security relationship,” citing “the war in Gaza, rising extremist Jewish terror in the West Bank and the US-Israel war with Iran.”
Also stressing that “the US-Israel security relationship remains a central pillar of American policy in the Middle East,” Ben-Ami added that joint research and technological investment “should continue” and that the U.S. should continue to sell short-range air and ballistic missile defense capabilities to Israel. However, “all future Research and Development agreements with Israel must include genuine cost-sharing and aim to produce defense items that both countries plan to field.”
Ben-Ami’s post includes this statement, in boldface: “The goal of this reassessment is to advance the broader American interest of a more stable and prosperous Middle East that includes both Israelis and Palestinians living in security and freedom.”
U.S. funding for Israel’s Iron Dome first started under the Obama administration in 2011. J Street’s acceptance of the position for candidates appears aimed at navigating divisions among congressional Democrats as Democratic Party voter views swing against Israel and influential progressive figures in the congressional delegation, most conspicuously Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who previously backed missile-defense funding, and Rep. Ro Khanna of California, join calls to end all military aid to Israel.
Other members and candidates in the party still back Iron Dome funding from the U.S. seek to condition offensive weapons sales on Israel’s compliance with human rights and international law.
Brad Lander, a Jewish challenger to Rep. Dan Goldman, said last week he would oppose any additional U.S. aid to Israel, arguing the country is in violation of human rights and international law.
Last week, Brad Lander, a Jewish Democrat running for Congress who has described himself as a liberal Zionist, on Friday joined the calls for an end to U.S. aid to Israel, while adding that “Israel should have access to purchase it with their own funds.” Lander, who has been “primary approved” to challenge Rep. Dan Goldman of New York — who is the official J Street pick in the race — told the Forward he did not coordinate his announcement with the group’s, which came after his.
Democrats are already taking legislative action. The Senate is expected to vote on Wednesday on two measures — filed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Jewish Vermont Independent and longtime critic of U.S. aid to Israel — to restrict at least $660 million in weapons sales to Israel. A record 27 Senate Democrats — a majority of the caucus — supported a similar pair of resolutions to block weapons transfers. J Streets urged members to vote in favor. In the House, the Block the Bombs Act, which would restrict certain offensive arms sales to Israel, currently has 60 sponsors.
J Street’s red line
Ben-Ami maintained that J Street’s updated stance to end grants, known as the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program, aligns with calls by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, to gradually “taper off” U.S. military aid to Israel over the next decade until it reaches zero. “This reform would normalize the relationship and place Israel in the same category as other capable allies that purchase U.S. defense equipment without subsidy,” Ben-Ami said.
Ilan Goldenberg, J Street’s senior vice president and chief policy officer and previously an aide to former Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, said the organization will still support the sale of Iron Dome components and other missile defense systems as long as it’s consistent with U.S. law and aligns with U.S. policy objectives and interests.
The strategy reflects a broader shift in politics, where Israel policy and Palestinian rights have become a litmus test for progressive candidates. Recent polls showed the tensions within the Democratic Party, which loomed large in the 2024 presidential election in the wake of the Gaza war — and now opposition to the war in Iran — are likely to shape the midterm elections.
J Street PAC is backing 133 House and Senate incumbents as well as Democratic challengers running against Republican incumbents. The group has also approved several candidates competing in open Democratic primaries, allowing its donor network to support their campaigns
Speaking with the Forward during J Street’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. last month, Ben-Ami outlined the organization’s red lines for endorsements. “If you’re in favor of a complete arms embargo against Israel, and you don’t recognize that Israel should be the national homeland of the Jewish people, you won’t come anywhere near our list,” Ben-Ami said.
A recent poll commissioned by the organization found that 70% of American Jews support placing some conditions on military assistance, including 26% who favor halting aid altogether.
The departure from the long-standing bipartisan consensus backing unconditional military support for Israel has drawn criticism from some Israel supporters.
Joel Rubin, a national security expert and a former Obama administration official who was the founding political and government affairs director at J Street in 2008, called it a “major shift” that “undermines” pro-Israel organizational support for the U.S.-Israel security assistance relationship and also “puts more pressure” on Democrats to oppose aid to Israel. “J Street is playing with fire regarding the US.-Israel relationship,” he said. “It’s much easier to tear down a relationship than it is to build one up.”
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Deni Avdija might not win Most Improved Player. But he can achieve something greater.
In any other year Deni Avdija, the NBA’s reigning Israeli superstar and its most talented Jewish player in at least half a century, might be a shoo-in for the league’s Most Improved Player award. The 6-foot-8 forward inflated his scoring average from 16.9 to 24.2 — good for 14th in the NBA — as he made his first All-Star team and guided the Portland Trail Blazers to their first winning season in five years.
But in spite of his team’s social media campaigning, this year’s award seems most likely headed to the Atlanta Hawks’ Nickeil Alexander-Walker, whose 20 points-per-game more than doubled last year’s average. Sportsbooks made Alexander-Walker an overwhelming favorite to win, and while I would debate the merits — Avdija also raised his assist numbers, had a bigger role on his team and made a more difficult leap — I can’t really argue the odds.
Anyway, with the regular season over, Deni is onto more important things — starting Tuesday night, when his Blazers take on the Phoenix Suns in the biggest game of his career to date. The winner of Tuesday’s Play-In (10 p.m. ET on Amazon Prime) advances to the one place Avdija’s never been in his six seasons: the NBA Playoffs.
At stake is more than just Avdija’s drought of 425 games without a playoff appearance — the fifth longest streak of any active player. It’s also the 10 years Israeli fans watched Avdija’s Jewish countryman Omri Casspi play without seeing him in the postseason. Casspi’s 588 games with seven different teams are the fourth-most without playing in the playoffs in NBA history (and the most of any player born after 1950). An ignominious record, indeed.
As Jewish Telegraphic Agency has noted, Israeli-born journeyman TJ Leaf, who is not Jewish, made the playoffs as recently as 2021. And others have pointed out that Casspi’s team made the playoffs in 2014, but he did not play. But Avdija himself seems to regard this as a possible breakthrough.
“First taste of the playoffs — I think ever for an Israeli player,” he said — last year, before the Blazers barely missed the Play-In.
If the Blazers do end the Jewish Israeli playoff curse, it will be thanks to Avdija, who’s answered every call for the franchise this season. In two critical late-season games against the Los Angeles Clippers — their rival for the 8th playoff seed — Avdija led all players in scoring both times, including 35 points April 10 as Portland grabbed hold of the 8-seed.
Avdija’s work will be difficult against Phoenix, which in Dillon Brooks employs one of the stingiest wing defenders in the Association. Avdija was one of the best in the league at drawing fouls — he was third in the NBA in free throw attempts — and the game may depend on how closely the referees officiate contact. As for prior experience, Avdija only played one full game against the Suns this year, scoring 19 points in a 17-point loss; Portland split the other two matchups.
Because they secured the 8-seed, the Blazers will have a second chance at making the playoffs even if they lose. The winner of Wednesday night’s Clippers-Golden State Warriors matchup will face the loser of Blazers-Suns. Two chances to win one, and make (Jewish) Israeli hoops history.
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